Gaming - Page 45

Having issues starting your PS5? Is the dreaded blue light of death (BLOD) blinking steadily? Try these quick tips before disassembling your console all the way.

Like all electronics, consoles will break down eventually. Sometimes, though, it's not an actual hardware fault. If your PS5 is stuck blinking blue, you might be able to salvage it with some quick, easy steps. Note: This only works for the disc-based PS5. If you have a digital-only system, this fix isn't for you.

My disc-based launch PS5 from 2020 has been stuck on the blue light of death boot loop for weeks now, and with the new PS5 price hikes making console ownership prohibitively expensive, I decided to finally break open the box and attempt some repairs. At first, I planned to just swap out/re-apply the PS5's liquid metal, which is the usual culprit for blue light of death errors. Over time, the liquid metal will move and oxidize, leading to dry spots on the PS5's APU, which in turn leads to overheating and triggering the console's safety shut-off. Once the PS5 has gone into this state, it's possible the console will go into the BLOD boot loop, refusing to start in an effort to prevent component damage.

New entries in the PS5 Software Development Kit (SDK) may point towards a PlayStation handheld, potentially reinforcing reports of a next-gen PS6 Portable.

The latest video from Moore's Law is Dead claims to lay out the evidence of a high-powered PlayStation handheld. MLID presents info that was replicated from the PS5's current SDK, which apparently features an asset-packaging infrastructure similar to Xbox's Smart Delivery. It's called PlayGo, and the idea is that Sony will allow devs to choose which assets are attached to which version of a game; the PS4 and PS4 Pro version, for example, will have lower-res textures compared to a PS5 or PS5 Pro version.

Included in the PlayGo settings is a preset for Power Saver mode, and it's this mode that is believed to facilitate the handheld's performance targets, downscaling raw power profiles into more manageable, portable-friendly CPU and GPU optimization settings aimed at balancing battery life. As we postulated when the mode was announced, the PS5's Power Saver mode is believed to be the backbone of what makes these adjustments possible.

Having already signed a deal with NetEase to bring games to China, Blizzard has inked a similar deal with Nexon to bring Overwatch to Korean markets.

Blizzard has made a deal with Nexon to bring its re-launched Overwatch overseas to Korea, adapting the game specifically for those regional players. Exact details on what this will look like remain unclear. The deal's terms say that Blizzard will continue developing Overwatch's content, and Nexon will publish the game on PC in Korea while handling live operations for the special overseas version of the game.

Blizzard has made similar deals in the past, sometimes morphing their games considerably for foreign markets; China, for example, has a special Diablo 2 server complete with items that are exclusive to the region.

NVIDIA gave us a sneak peek of The Witcher 4's potential real-time performance with its new foliage LOD system for RTX Mega Geometry during GTC 2026. NVIDIA published a talk discussing the future of Path Tracing, and showed off a demo of the tech running with all the dials cranked (allegedly) at 58 FPS or more on an RTX 5090 and RTX 4070.

The demo was comprised of nearly 60 million plants, one million trees, and over 200 different species of plants in a 5x5 km area, with all of the assets running in VRAM. Martin Stich, one of NVIDIA's spokespersons and the leader of NVIDIA's ray tracing team, claims that if you flattened the entire scene at maximum LOD, the demo would have over 5 trillion triangles. What makes the system special is the fact that all of the foliage geometry is modeled, all the way down to the individual pine needles.

All of these assets were running with full path tracing enabled. On the RTX 5090, NVIDIA claims the demo ran at 80 FPS with DLSS quality mode upscaling from 1440p to 4K. The RTX 4070 with DLSS Quality mode upscaling from 960p to 1440p achieved 58 FPS. NVIDIA also laid out the frame time analysis, showing that the path tracing scene takes almost 50% of the GPU's render time per frame.

Remedy's latest dev diary for Control Resonant hypes up the new project, highlighting unique gameplay features like Dylan's teleportation traversal.

Control Resonant looks to be a must-play game of 2026, incorporating fast and stylish Devil May Cry-like hack-and-slash action with a deliberate, power-driven progression scheme. Remedy is taking cues from classic games in the genre while adding their own spin on things, like the wall-shifting mechanic that turns the entire map into an M.C. Escher painting.

In a new video, one dev says that this level of complex design is a result of the biggest-ever gameplay team that Remedy has ever had. "We have the biggest gameplay team in Remedy history," Control Resonant executive producer Juha Vainio said.

Undead Labs has exciting news for post-apocalyptic scavengers across the globe: State of Decay 3 starts alpha testing next month.

Today, Xbox Game Studios group Undead Labs announced that it will be conducting alpha tests for State of Decay 3 starting in May. These will be community-driven affairs where gamers can help shape and guide the sequel's development, offering critical feedback during the game's early rounds of widespread playtesting.

"Over the last few years, most of the team has been doing updates for State of Decay 2. The rest of us have been creating cool sh*t for State of Decay 3. Starting next month, we'll be hosting a series of alpha playtests with the community," series co-creator Brant Fitzgerald said in today's video.

Starfield will leverage the PS5 Pro's PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology to deliver enhanced graphics and performance modes, the latter targeting 60FPS.

Today Bethesda confirmed that Starfield will support PSSR on PS5 Pro, enabling better visuals while in fidelity mode and boosted frame rates while playing in performance mode.

"On PlayStation 5 Pro, you can pick the look and feel that fits your playstyle. Pro Visual Mode delivers a 4K final rendering output targeting 30 FPS for maximum visual fidelity, while Pro Performance Mode targets 60 FPS for a faster, more fluid experience. Both modes are powered by PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) upscaling technology," Bethesda wrote in a new blog post.

In recent weeks, the generative AI debate has had the gaming industry in a chokehold. NVIDIA faced significant backlash over its DLSS 5 technology, which poured AI slop onto some of our favorite Capcom characters. Meanwhile, studios like Nexon have advocated for AI, describing it as a redesign for game development.

And Take-Two has been vocal too, with CEO Strauss Zelnick commenting on multiple occasions that generative AI has no part in GTA 6, calling the notion of AI creating a hit game laughable. At the same time, Zelnick has also said he has "actively embraced" AI for handling mundane tasks, while leaving the creative work to humans to produce superb entertainment.

Now, only two months later, the publisher and parent company of Rockstar Games has laid off members of its team dedicated to researching and implementing artificial intelligence. Most notably, the company's Head of AI, Luke Dicken, has been let go, along with an undisclosed number of people from the division.

Sony's games division has made an interesting purchase, acquiring a UK-based group that creates simulated 3D imagery based on static photographs.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has purchased machine learning company Cinemersive Labs, the company today announced. Cinemersive doesn't have a very public presence, but its website and YouTube channel gets the point across. The firm uses AI and machine learning to create immersive 3D views from images, which can then be viewed in VR. This could mean that PSVR2 isn't dead, and that Sony could be using Cinemersive Labs to help power the next-generation of Future Immersive Entertainment, possibly for the PlayStation 6.

"Today, we are pleased to announce that SIE has entered into an agreement to acquire Cinemersive Labs, a UK-based machine learning and computer vision company," Sony said, then adding that the group will help fortify new rendering techniques, possibly Sony's in-house PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology.

Naughty Dog director Vinit Agarwal shares rare candid info on the cancelled Last of Us multiplayer online game, saying that the project had been in development for the better part of a decade before it was scrapped.

In late 2023, Sony and Naughty Dog made the surprise decision to cancel one of the more anticipated games in PlayStation's live service roadmap: A standalone multiplayer game set in The Last of Us universe, with holdovers from the original game's Factions mode. Naughty Dog explained the rationale for the cancellation, saying that it would have required the studio to "put all our resources" into post-release content to feed the game.

Now in a recent interview with the Lance E. Podcast from Tokyo, former Naughty Dog developer and Last of Us Online game director Vinit Agarwal highlights the "soul-crushing"experience of having his dream game cancelled.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Cinemersive Labs, a UK startup developing AI tools to convert 2D photos and videos into 3D volumes. The Cinemersive Labs team will join Sony's Visual Computing Group, a research and engineering team focused on graphical technology, including game rendering, video coding, and generative AI models.

Sony announced the acquisition on its website, framing the deal as part of its efforts to "push the boundaries of visual computing and deliver richer, more immersive gameplay experiences." "Following the acquisition, the Cinemersive Labs team will join SIE's Visual Computing Group and contribute to our broader efforts in advancing state of the art visual computing within games," Sony said. "This includes applying machine learning to enhance gameplay visuals, improve rendering techniques, and unlock new levels of visual fidelity for players."

Cinemersive's most recent product is Parallax, a virtual reality app that converts 2D images into 3D volumes and lets users look around them with natural head movements. The startup built custom AI tools to make this possible, and that expertise might be what Sony is after.

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming library continues to grow this month, with some of the more notable additions being the action game Samson, out April 8, the visually impressive indie Replaced, which is out on April 14, Capcom's PRAGMATA, out April 17, and Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors, out April 21.

These titles join several games that were added to the service this week, including the highly anticipated arrival of Arknights: Endfield, the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection, Super Meat Boy 3D, and, for those celebrating Easter, I Am Jesus Christ. Yes, that's a Jesus simulator which got released today on Steam.

All of these titles, and more, are available to play via GeForce NOW's various subscription tiers, with the highest option offering access to playing PC games with their highest visual settings enabled, including ray-tracing, with DLSS 4, Reflex, and other technologies like G-SYNC, running on a GeForce RTX 5080-powered superpod.

With Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro hitting $900, gamers are speculating on what's next--the PlayStation 6, or even a PS handheld that's more powerful than the current-gen Xboxes? What about Steam Deck 2? A known leaker says that Valve could be targeting a tentative 2028 window for the handheld PC successor.

Back in August 2025, known tech expert and leaker KeplerL2 said that the second-gen Steam Deck could drop in 2028. A lot has changed since then, especially with the RAM-pocalypse, driving up prices of storage and memory, leading to a world where 32GB of DDR5 RAM costs almost as much as the PS4 did at launch.

In a post on NeoGAF, Kepler says that the last thing he heard about the Steam Deck 2 is the aforementioned 2028 timing, but things could get pushed back due to global tech shortages afflicting multiple sectors and industries--including gaming. Valve has delayed the reveal of its Steam Machine pricing due to higher costs, saying that it still plans to launch the console sometime this year.

According to a LinkedIn profile, it took Sony 3 years to make $300 million in revenue from PC. That's indeed true, and something that the company actually revealed way back in 2023.

Reports indicate that Sony may stop releasing its new first-party singleplayer games on PC. Instead, the company might double down on PlayStation exclusivity and lock these must-have games behind consoles in a bid to preserve the integrity of long-term sales.

Now we have more context on that report, and the truth is that the data itself--and the context around it--has been there for years. As per the LinkedIn page of former PlayStation division PC planner Jerry Liu, Sony earned only $300 million from PC sales across the first 3 years.

Last year, the third-person shooter Arc Raiders faced criticism for using AI text-to-speech for NPC dialogue. Although Embark Studio brought back voice actors to record more lines, it never fully abandoned the AI-generated ones. The studio defended its approach, saying the goal was not to make games without actors but to speed up production by mixing recorded and AI-generated lines.

Fast forward to today, Embark Studio CEO Patrick Soderlund was recently promoted to executive chairman of publisher Nexon and is once again weighing in on the controversial use of AI in gaming, calling it a force that will "redesign game development." In a new capital markets briefing, Soderlund highlighted Nexon's broader AI approach.

Soderlund argues most companies have the wrong idea about AI's role in game development, and says Nexon has an edge because it understands the technology more deeply. "AI may be a race, but the winners won't be first movers. The winners will be the ones who understood the challenge," he said.

To its many fans, StarCraft is one of those Blizzard franchises that has remained dormant for way too long. That said, we've been hearing rumors of a new StarCraft game for years, and that it will arrive as a first- or third-person shooter. This dates back to 2024, when Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier said, "StarCraft is not dead," and that ex-Far Cry lead Dan Hay was leading development.

Fast-forward to 2026, and rumors that the game could be revealed and fully announced at BlizzCon 2026 later this year suggest the project is far enough along in development and design to be ready for a public reveal. This week, we've got word that Blizzard is hiring a "Lead Designer, Innovation" for an "Unannounced Game" that might be this new mysterious StarCraft project.

And we say that because the job listing is looking for a "Lead Game Designer to spearhead gameplay and content innovations for an upcoming AAA open-world shooter." Unless it's referring to a third shooter currently in development at Blizzard, counting Overwatch, there's a good chance this role could be related to the next StarCraft game.

Crimson Desert has proven to be one of the biggest and most notable releases of the year. This sprawling open-world action-adventure also pushes PC visual fidelity and performance to the limit with vast, detail-packed environments. That said, there's always room for improvement, especially when it comes to the game's ray-tracing.

Beyond Dreams, a YouTube channel that regularly mods the look of games via the ReShade post-processing injector, has uploaded a new video showcasing what Crimson Desert looks like running in 8K with a 'Complete RT' overhaul that dramatically improves Global Illumination (RTGI) and Ambient Occlusion, with cinematic changes made to grass rendering, color grading, and depth of field effects. It also adds a shaky-camera effect to give the presentation a more realistic, photoreal look.

Although the depth of field effects while you're playing an open-world action-adventure don't make a lot of sense, the improvements to Global Illumination are immediately apparent. With ReSTIR GI, Crimson Desert's environments and lighting look more natural, transforming the game from its "video game" look to something that definitely showcases the benefits of RTGI.

Just a bit ago we published a report that Xbox has more games on the PlayStation Store's pre-order charts than Sony does. Now we've found an inverse relation, with Sony having more games than Microsoft does on the Xbox's top-sellers charts in the US.

The relationship between Sony and Microsoft is rather interesting. Seen as fierce rivals, especially during the FTC v Microsoft case in 2023, the two are also close bedfellows when it comes to big billion-dollar games like Minecraft, and after the merger, Call of Duty. While Xbox and PlayStation are competitor-rivals, they also maintain a symbiotic relationship, and this bond has only grown now that Microsoft has broken content exclusivity for good and all.

The dynamics of each company are likewise interesting. Sony is following Microsoft's lead to an extent, bringing multiple first-party funded and/or published games to Xbox, but only in the context of live service games like Marathon and Helldivers 2 (both of which appear on the Xbox list) as well as sports games like MLB The Show (this also pops up).

AMD's latest entry in its Ryzen 9000 X3D lineup is the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, the world's first CPU with a dual 3D V-Cache design. Dell was actually one of the first companies to accidentally confirm the CPU's existence before launch, listing the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 in one of its configurations before quickly calling it an error and claiming it was meant to be the Ryzen 7 9950X3D.

Today, Dell's Alienware X handle has officially announced the newest addition to its Area 51 desktop lineup, powered by the 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. This makes it the most powerful pre-built desktop the company has ever offered, with the processor bringing a dual X3D chiplet design, 192MB of L3 cache, and a total of 208MB of cache for superior gaming and productivity performance.

Interestingly, before the announcement, Dell had contacted VideoCardz to say that reports claiming the Area 51 would feature the 9950X3D2 were inaccurate. And now all of a sudden it has done exactly the opposite. Perhaps the company wanted a surprise announcement and was trying to keep things under wraps, but it could have simply not responded at all.

A modder and game maker wants to answer a question that has plagued PC gamers since the early 2000s: What would Diablo 2 be like with a first-person view like Elder Scrolls?

Diablo 2 as an FPS is surprisingly smooth--that is, if it's built by a skilled digital artisan with Unreal Engine 5's toolkit. YouTube creator and UE5 whiz I Make Games has released new gameplay footage for a side project meant to drum up interest for some kind of first-person, action-adventure Diablo game.

The result is an interesting look at a potential spin-off for the franchise, one that's more focused on in-your-face action similar to Skyrim. The Forgotten Tower has never seemed so dark and ominous, with the fallen clan goat men crowding the screen. The animations also show what sorceress abilities like ice blast and blizzard would be like in a dungeon-crawling 3D environment.